• Voices: SSATB / SSAAB & piano [& optional chorus]
• Composer: KINKEL, Johanna (1810 - 1858)
• Genre: Musical Comedy (1829)
• Duration: 11 - 12 minutes
• 979070-8082-59-0

Humorous and suitable for all age groups, this light hearted work for 5 vocalists (sung throughout), will get your audience laughing.

THE STORYLINE: five birds try to rehearse an anthem to perform at the Eagle's Birthday party. But the rehearsal does not go smoothly because they keep stopping to argue. First, they are late arriving for the rehearsal (which upsets the cuckoo) and then they squabble about everything: who should be the conductor, who is the best singer, and which of them was responsible for singing a wrong note!

This was the first work of Johanna Kinkel to be published, her opus no.1. She was only nineteen years old when she wrote the words and music and then conducted the first performance, in Bonn. Eight years later, while she was studying and working in Berlin, Johanna revived the work, writing it out from memory in a remarkably short space of time, so that it could be performed for the birthday of Onkel Savigny (Justice Minister F.C. von Savigny) by Bettina von Arnim with various of her friends and relatives.
Sing it in the original German or with the faithful and sing-able English translation created by Roz Trübger. (*n.b> Rabe translates accurately as Raven, but for the purposes of this edition, the name Crow is used as it has the correct number of syllables.)

SAMPLE:

Johanna Kinkel (also Mathieux, Mockel) made her mark in the worlds of both music and literature and her life makes a fascinating story.  Born in Bonn, her childhood music studies were with Beethoven’s teacher. As an adult, she was a friend of Fanny Mendelssohn and Karl Marx. She got caught up in the revolutionary events of 1849 and emigrated to London after helping her husband escape from Spandau prison. Her short life ended tragically when she fell from her bedroom window near Paddington station.